The study of culture and personality seeks to
understand the growth and development of personal or social identity as it relates to the
surrounding social environment (Barnouw 1963:5). In other words, through the
examination of individual personalities, broader correlations and generalizations can be
made about the specific culture of those members. This has led to examinations of
national character, modal personality types and configurations of personality.

The field of culture and personality draws
on psychology and anthropology. Born out of Freud's psychoanalysis,
anthropologists began searching for common aspects that would characterize differing
peoples by their cultures. In an attempt to avoid racist, hierarchical culture
models, a new breed of anthropologists sought to describe cultures based on the
individuals within a society and the similarities that that shared.

Points of Reaction

Anthropology in its fledgling years in the mid to
late nineteenth century attempted to apply the theories of Charles Darwin to every aspect
of human study. Therefore, in accordance to the colonial practices of that time,
anthropologists viewed the differences between human cultures as a series of stages within
an evolving schema. This led to a system that rather than described differences between
cultures, enforced notions of "civilized" versus "primitive". In
this sense the Western European influenced cultures were deemed to most
"civilized" whereas other North American, African, and Asian tribes, bands, and
peoples were determined to be inferior, or "primitive".

Under these terms, a German-born Jewish
anthropologist sought to change the previous notion. Thus, Franz Boas changed the
course of culture studies from an hierarchical, evolutionary system, to one that promoted
equivalence of man and his social institutions. Boas began an aggressive study of
the vanishing Native American tribes that existed prior to their displacement by the
Europeans. In fact, Boas coined the defintion for "culture" in the sense
that we use it today, the collection of a specific people characterized by their own
societies and institutions (Goodenough 1996:292).

Leading
Figures

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Freud was one of the first psychologist to break down the barrier between anthropology and
psychology. Best known for his psycholoanalysis, Freud saw the traumas of childhood
refected in the neuroses of adults. He established the Oedipus complex as a
universal story in which the son, jealous of his father's attentions on his mother,
entertains hostility towards the father and develops an erotic attachment to his
mother. This desire is felt among all men; yet is buried by repression and then
resurfaces in the actions of adulthood. Freud's psychoanalysis was an attempt to
uncover the repressed childhood traumas through a series of word associations, dream
analyses, and free-flow talking. His best known anthropological work is Totem and
Taboo (1905). In this book, Freud provides an insightful description of taboos
and their origination; yet his theory on the origin of totems is somewhat speculative.

Edward Sapir (1884-1939) A close colleague of Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir was
recognized for his great accomplishments in linguistics, studying and ascribing the
grammatical rules for differing Amerindian languages. Sapir studied under the
tutelage of Franz Boas and later Alfred Kroeber, another of Boas's students.
Influenced by the writings of Karl Jung, Sapir began pursuing the relevance of psychology
to anthropology helping to found the culture and personality approach. Insistance
upon the importance of the person led to the shift of anthropologists from thinking
in the evolutionary terms of Lewis Henry Morgan to conceptualizing the differences between
simple and complex man. Sapir was also heavily influenced in the utilization of
psychotherepy as a technique to better understand individuals (Bohannan and Glazer
1988:141).

Ruth Benedict (1887-1948) A student of Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict finished her doctoral
work in three years at Columbia University. Her dissertation on documenting the
rapidly deteriorating Native American societies provided the impetus to pursue culture and
personality studies. Through her work on the patterning of culture at an individual
level, Benedict opened anthropology into a much larger discussion between the disciplines
of anthropology and psychology. In her more famous monograph, Patterns of
Culture, Benedict seeks to define various cultures in terms of four types Apollonian,
Dionysian, Paranoid and Meglomanic. These represented ways of living, or cultural
configurations (Bernard and Spencer 1996:137). Benedict admits that not all cultures
will fit into these four types; however, she uses these types to characterize the Pueblo,
Plains Indians, Dobu Islanders, and Kwakuital (in that order). Another famous work
by Benedict is The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946). This monograph was
based on the national character of Japan; however, Benedict, herself, never visited
Japan. Instead, she gathered material for her monograph from her readings of
Japanese life and interviews of Japanese immigrants (Bohannan and Glazer 1988:174). Benedict's approach to studying culutres centered on the
ethos or the characteristic moral, aesthetic, and emotional tones of specific cultures).

Margaret Mead (1901-1978) A student of
Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead also investigated the relationship between culture and
personality. Her monograph Coming of Age in Samoa (1949) established her as
one of the leading anthropologists of the day. Starting as a configurationalist,
Mead also wrote about national character. Hired in World War II by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Mead researched the national character of England and compared it to
that found within the United States. She determined that in each society the norms
for interaction between the sexes differed, leading to many misunderstandings between the
two otherwise similar cultures.

Abram Kardiner
(1891-1981) A developer of the basic
personality structure approach, Kardiner was a psychoanalyst who argued, along with Ralph
Linton, that while culture and personality were similarly integrated, a specific casual
relationship existed between them (Toren 1996:143). He and Linton criticized the
configurationalist approach as being too broad and vague. Instead, he put forth his
own theory- the basic personality structure. In this, he distiguished between
primary institutions (those which produce the basic personality structure) and secondary
institutions (those which are the product of basic personality itself). Examples of
primary institutions are those things which are a product of adaptation within an
environment, such as housing, family types, descent types, etc. Secondary
intitutions, on the other hand, include social organization technology, and child training
practices; these are manifested through religion and other social practices.

Ralph Linton (1893-1953) Ralph Linton was a co-founder of the basic personality
structure theory. He sought to establish a basic personality for each culture.
Linton devoted the majority of his studies to collecting ethnographies of Melanesians and
Amerindians. He eventuall replaced Boas as head of the Anthropology department at
Columbia University, causing much friction with Ruth Benedict who believed the position
should have been hers.
Linton provided additional influence in Cora DuBois's work.

Cora DuBois (1903- ) The creator of
the modal personality structure, DuBois was heavily influenced by the work of Abram
Kardiner and Ralph Linton. Her experience as an ethnographer and psychologist
provided a valuable link in the chain of thought of the culture and personality
school. DuBois modified the Kardiner and Linton's notion of basic personality
structure with her modal personality theory. She assumed that a certain personality
structure occurs most frequently within a society, but that it is not necessaryily common
to all members of that society. She applied a number of approaches to her works,
such as participant observation, projective tests (the Rorschach and TAT, espescially),
and life biographies (Toren 1996:144).

Key Works

Benedict, Ruth (1934) Patterns of Culture.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Freud, Sigmund (1950) Totem and Taboo.
New York: Norton.

DuBois, Cora (1960) The People of Alor.
Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Basic Personality Stucture
Approach: This approach was developed jointly by
Abram Kardiner and Ralph Linton in response to the Configurationalist approach.
Kardiner and Linton did not believe that culutre types were adequate for differentiating
societies. Instead, they offered a new approach which looked at individual members
within a society and then compared the traits of these members in order to achieve a basic
personality for each culture (Toren 1996:144).

Configurational Approach: Edward Sapir and Ruth Benedict developed this school of thought
early in the culture and personality studies. The configurationalist approach
believes that culture takes on the character of the members' personality structure.
Thus, all members of a culture display similar personalities that can further be collected
as a form of types. Also, patterns within a culture are linked by symbolism and
interpretation. Therefore, through a system of common ideas and beliefs a culture
can be defined. Finally, individuals are integral components of culture and should
therefore by studied on the individual level in order to glean more about the people as a
whole (Bock 1982:44).

Gestalt psychologists: The early influence that led to the configurationalist
approach. These were the psychologists who argued that information should be
collected in the form of patterns, rather than as separate elements. This German
school of thought entered scholarly circles during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries (Bock 1982:146)

Modal Personality Approach: This was the brain child of Cora DuBois who developed
the approach in response to the criticisms of her earlier work that included basic
personality structures. DuBois, heavily influenced by Kardiner, brought a new level
of competency to culture and personality structures. Modal personality assumes that
a certain personality structure is the most frequently occurring structure within a
society, not necessarily the structure that is the most common to all members of that
society. This approach utilizes projective tests in addition to life histories
creating a stronger basis for personality types due to the use of statistics to backup the
conclusions (Toren 1996:145).

National Character: These studies began in full earnest during and after World War II
as a pet project of the Office of the Secret Service. Ruth Benedict and Margaret
Mead led this new attempt to understand different peoples. Through Mead's study of
the British, she learned that English women were reliant upon young male's self-control
and were conditioned to not have to quiet the men's urges. On the other hand,
American society held the belief that women should exert their self control over the men's
urges. Once this difference in the two societies was realized, then attempts to
avoid further misunderstandings was enacted (Singer 1964).

Additionally, Ruth Benedict wrote a monograph The
Chrysanthemum and the Sword on the Japanese culture based Japanese writings and
interviews with Japanese immigrants. However, this was not very well received by the
Japanese because she did not study them first hand. Her research was based on
secondary sources and thus seems to have been biased and/or unfounded. Ironically,
however, much of her work has been validated (Bock 1982).

Methodologies

Clinical Interviews Clinical interviews combine a psychologist/anthropologist
with a member of the society. Through a variety of methods, whether passive such as
through dream analysis and free association or active such as pointed questions that lead
to probing answers, the professional is able to record and attempt to understand the
internal thoughts and motivations of an individual within a society. These
interviews are usually conducted in a specific room or office (Klineberg 1954:33).

Dream Analysis A part of Freud's psycholoanalysis, dream analysis attempts
to seek out the repressed emotions of a person by peeling back the subconscious.
This is accomplished through the discussion of the person's dreams.

Life Histories
The documenting of an individual's experiences throughout his/her life. Used
especially by Cora DuBois, members of the Modal Personality Approach and ethnographers.

Participant Observation This occurs once a member of another culture lives with the
society he/she is studying and takes an active role within that community. This is
an important part of the ethnographer's research because it aids in discovering the
intricate behaviors of a society.

Projective Tests These are tests which have an ambiguous meaning so that the
response a person gives can be measured and then compared to other responses leading to
the increased use of statistics to support findings. One common test is the
Rorschach inkblot test which has a number of different inkblots. From these an
individual must describe what he/she sees and this perception is then compared throughout
the society. Again, these are a common method for researchers using the Modal
Personality Approach.

Accomplishments

Culture and personality structures have greatly
limited the number of racist, hierarchical descriptions of culture types that were common
in the early part of this century. Through these studies, a new emphasis on the
individual emerged, thus linking anthropology with psychology. From this bridge a
wealth of information has been shared and distributed across disciplines. This had
added to the amount of knowledge on either side as studies from different schools have
been compared and analyzed. Added emphasis has been placed on learning about
societal behaviors within cultures, and this work has aided foreigners understanding of
alien cultures that they are visiting or relocating to. Government workers and
service men have been briefed on the customs of various cultures before they are
themselves immersed in the new culture. Through culture and personality studies we
have begun to realize that humans are basically the same and that we as a whole are
evolving instead of a series of evolving stages.

Criticisms

Culture and Personality came under the heavy
scrutiny of Radcliffe-Brown and other British social anthropologists. They dismissed
this view due as a 'vague abstraction' (Barnard and Spencer 1996:140). Before 1960
the opposite of culturalist would have been structuralist. However, as an exception,
Claude Levi-Strauss viewed culture as having distinguishing features which would
characterize differing cultures from each other. This was perhaps influenced by his
close friendship with Franz Boas.